john urho kemp
a bermuda triangle #2
Who was John Urho Kemp (1942–2010)? Mystic, alchemist, mathematical poet, or simply an explorer of reality, Kemp remains an elusive figure. His works—which he called “offerings”—blended sacred imagery with algebra, anonymously distributed like coded prayers.
Obsessed with the idea of a hidden order in the universe, he created a vast body of drawings and diagrams at the crossroads of art, science, and spirituality. A puzzling body of work that questions the very nature of creation, in the spirit of Duchamp: is it possible to make a work that is not art?
Kemp was the subject of his first solo exhibition in France in 2015 at the christian berst art brut gallery, curated by Gaël Charbau.
That same year, an installation of his was presented at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Paris. In 2021, his work entered the collection of the Centre Pompidou. It can also be found in the collections of abcd, Antoine de Galbert, and Treger Saint Silvestre.
*A roundtable held on this occasion—with Gaël Charbau, Jean de Loisy, Laurent Derobert, and Christian Berst—is availableto watch here.
This Californian artist, who died in 2010, had a degree in chemical engineering. Fascinated by meditation and metaphysics, he sought to unravel the mysteries of existence through formulas and numbers drawn from his own history. This “conceptual brut” artist sometimes photocopied his work to distribute it to as many people as possible. In 2014, Daniel Baumann introduced him to the 548 Center in New York. The following year, we entrusted Gael Charbau with writing an essay and curing the monographic exhibition held at the gallery. In the same year, Alfred
A significant number of his works was donated to the Centre Pompidou collection in 2021.